G’day there! if you’re reading this you’ve obviously come across our new website. Thanks for being here! My name is Laze, I’m the founder of Australian Loans Group, and this blog entry is about my unconventional journey into mortgage and finance broking.
I’ve always had a passion for property. I don’t know why, maybe it has to do with my background (migrant parents who believe owning your own property is one of the most important things in life) or maybe it has to do with my ambition to build wealth. There’s just something about being able to stand back and point to a property and say – I own that part of the world!
My journey into mortgage and finance broking is an unconventional one. Shortly after completing my bachelor’s degree in Marketing and International Trade, I began working full time for a company called Red Energy – a gas and electricity retailer. It was meant to be a short term job (gas and electricity ain’t that sexy) but having found that Red’s values were totally aligned with my own, and with so many great people within the organisation, I remained there for close to seven years (and loved it!). I had several different roles beginning in the call center, then a role within compliance and finally as business development manager. I learned so much about business and am forever grateful for my time there.
Whilst at Red I was able to acquire my first investment property in late 2009 and then a second property within 18 months of the first purchase. This formed the foundation for me to take the plunge and start my own business later on.
Having purchased my first property during a time when the economy was recovering from the Global Financial Crisis, I very quickly learned about the power of capital growth. It was a lightbulb moment for me. The first property I had purchased had increased in value by approximately 15% in less than 12 months. This meant I was able to unlock the additional equity and use that to purchase my second property. It was like magic to me – I had made, seemingly out of thin air, enough money for my deposit on the second property, which was a site I intended to, and did, develop into multiple units (I’ll expand on the ins and outs of property development in posts to come).
It was through this process of purchasing, developing, selling and retaining numerous properties over the decade that followed that made me realize the importance of understanding the key ingredients needed to succeed in the property market. Sure, I made lots of mistakes along the way, but learning about mistakes out of experience, rather than from textbooks or hearsay, is irreplaceable. Experience is what gives you a depth of understanding that can never be derived from something you read about, hear about, or observe from the sidelines.
So, having founded Australian Loans Group in 2015 as a way for me to follow my desire to be involved in the property market and to run my own business, I now get to assist people each day in the pursuit of their dreams by providing guidance, advice and access to the finance they need to make it happen.
Put simply, there’s nothing that I enjoy more than to see people work hard, carry themselves with integrity and win! That’s something I love being a part of and that passion has been the foundation for Australian Loans Group.